Government aims to cut building costs by a fifth

The UK government has announced it will reduce
public sector infrastructure and construction costs by 20 per cent through
better procurement processes.

Chancellor George Osborne announced the
government’s Plan for growth
in his budget statement this week, which revealed new procurement models were
being created to achieve the savings.

The growth plan said the government would reform the way the public
sector purchases construction and infrastructure, which includes measures to
encourage standardisation rather than bespoke designs.

A spokeswoman
for the Cabinet Office told SM:
“We are in the process of finalising the new models of procurement and
other measures for public sector construction and infrastructure to reduce
costs by up to 20 per cent. Further information will be published in May 2011.”

At the end of last year, the Treasurysaid it could
save around £3 billion-a-year on infrastructure investment partly by improving
procurement processes. A report by Infrastructure UK
(IUK) set out a blueprint to save money on the National Infrastructure Plan 2010 - a £200 billion, five-year investment
programme.

The report by IUK, a separate unit within the Treasury, outlined how costs of building and maintaining energy, transport,
waste and flood defence infrastructure projects can be reduced. It was based on a survey of those in the infrastructure construction industry and showed they
welcomed client-side improvements in planning, commissioning and procurement of
projects.